The Sacred Heart and Our Faith

     Non-Catholics sometimes find it odd that Catholics pray to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. They do not understand that this prayer is a profession of faith. After all, when we pray to the Sacred Heart, we profess our belief that the Son of God really took a human nature and truly became man. We profess our faith that His humanity was complete and perfect in every way, notably that He took a human soul which was the human soul of a Divine Person. We acknowledge that this human soul of a Divine Person was substantially united with the human body of Christ and that, thus, the human heart of flesh that beat in the breast of Jesus Christ is no less than the material heart of a Divine Being: True God of True God. All of this we profess when we honor and invoke that Heart which sustained the early life of Our Lord until the moment it fell silent, exhausted on the Cross. And even then we drove a spear through It to make sure that It was stilled. Now risen to life, It remains forever the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Even as Christ showed His pierced Heart to the doubting Thomas the Apostle, so shall we all see that riven Heart when we stand for judgment.